Humayan's Tomb

The next stop was at Humayan's Tomb, the first of the Mughal (Muslim) garden tombs in India and one of the inspirations for the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan. Humayan was Jahan's great-grandfather and his tomb was commissioned by his wife.

To me, the most strikingly beautiful feature of this building is how the white marble juxtaposes with the red sandstone.

The interior of the tomb is every bit as impressive as the exterior.

Here is a detail of the stone filigree work present throughout the tomb.

The tomb includes the graves of Humayan, his wife who commissioned the tomb, the son of Shah Jahan and several other important Mughal rulers. Here are the tombs of Humayan and his wife.

But even a beautiful structure such as this is not immune to the plague of graffiti. I just cannot fathom what goes on in the mind of someone who would deface such a building like this.

The tomb was built in the middle of a 30 acre garden so the grounds of this site are quite extensive.





As you can see, the area was uncrowded and serene. We were again shocked by the lack of beggars and touts, even outside the walls of the tomb.

The site incorporates several other garden style monuments and tombs along the walkway to the main building. Here is the entrance gate to the Arab Serai, an enclosure to a retreat build in the 16th century for the craftsmen who came to do the construction work on the tomb.

The most extensive of the additional gardens is the tomb and mosque of Isa Khan, an Afghan noble who built this tomb 20 years before the Humayan tomb was built. When looking at these pictures, it's interesting to note that until the 1900s, there was an entire village situated in this enclosure, according to one of the inscriptions at the site.

Here is the gate to the Isa Khan enclosure - actually from the enclosure since people are on their way out.

This is the actual tomb of Isa Khan.

And this is his mosque.














Visiting this site was not without it's cultural moments. These workers were kind enough to let me take their picture while they were on their lunch break without asking for payment, something that occurred often on our trip. (Asking for payment for a picture, I mean. Later, we would tease the Indians who wanted to take our picture by asking them for a dollar.)

We found these brooms to be interesting. All through our trip we witnessed many people sweeping with this style of broom, but we never saw anyone with a dustpan picking up what they swept.






And also this portable pump. The first of many engeniously designed homemade mechanical devices we saw in India.

 Click here to see all of the pictures we took at Humayan's Tomb.